


Unbroken

by shinymogwai



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because apparently the showrunners are resolved the make Sansa the perpetual victim, Dubious Consent, Fix-It of Sorts, Other, Ramsay is a piece of shit, Sansa needs hugs but she will be okay, Sansa still goes through something horrible but at least she is gaining the advantage, Spoilers, Theon needs all of the therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 04:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4005517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinymogwai/pseuds/shinymogwai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ramsay Bolton is a monster, but Sansa Stark has learned how to play this game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

“You’ve known Sansa since she was a girl.” Ramsay purrs, his voice all honey, all sweetness. “Now watch her become a woman.”

Sansa’s heart hammered in her chest, her breath catching in her throat. Her eyes remained locked on the wall in front of her, not truly seeing anything. Numb fingers fumble at the laces on her gown, but she’s shaking so hard, she can’t stop shaking--

_No,_ the word echoed in her mind, over and over again, a silent plea to the gods old and new, a prayer that she knew would go unanswered, like every other. _No, no, no, no--_

“No.” Her voice comes out clipped and, to Sansa’s shock, surprisingly steady. She turns to face her husband, this monster-- and that’s what he is, a monster, she knew it when she first laid eyes on him and she knows it now-- and she forces herself to meet his eyes.

“I’m--” He stammers, lips twisting into a smile, like it’s a game he knows he’s winning. “I’m sorry, _what_ was that?” 

“No.” And there’s her voice again, clear and even. She lifts her chin, doesn’t look away, somehow fights the tears that burn at the back of her throat. “I don’t want him to watch. Send him away.”

Ramsay reaches out for her, and for a moment she thinks he’s going to strike her, but no, he simply brushes his fingertips against her cheek, like he cares, like he’s something capable of tenderness. “I am the _lord_ of Winterfell--”

“And _I_ am your _lady,”_ She pulls the corners of her lips upwards, puppets her features into a smile she doesn’t feel, presses her cheek into his hand. She imagines her voice is that of Margaery Tyrell, sweet as nectar and soft as flowers. “It’s our _wedding night._ And I’ve-- never _been_ with a man before.” Her cheeks color with shame at the words, and she thinks _good, let me look the shy virgin. Let me look sweet and innocent and incapable of hate,_ even as her chest burns with it. “This is a very important night for me. I don’t want that-- _thing_ watching.” And she lets the venom creep into her voice for just a moment, her gaze flicking to Theon just long enough to see the ironborn flinch. And then, back to Roose Bolton’s bastard, with his eyes blue as ice and ten times as cold.

_He won’t believe me,_ she thinks, her veins filling with lead, cold and heavy _. He won’t believe me, and he’ll make Theon watch as he rapes me._

But then, he laughs-- it’s a strangely childish noise, almost like Rickon’s _(no don’t think of him do not compare this monster to him)--_ and he turns to Theon, still cowering by the door. 

“Well, you heard her, Reek. Lady Sansa doesn’t want you here.” He lifts his fingers from her cheek and flicks them at the broken man, shooing him off. “Go on. Wait outside and make sure no one interrupts us.”

Theon gapes at them, and for a moment Sansa can’t help but pity him. The man who joked with her brothers was gone, the man who laughed at bawdy songs and delighted in making the serving girls giggle was gone, and she’s not quite sure what’s left. And then he looks down again, and nods, and unbolts the door, and then the closest thing Sansa had left to a brother is gone, and she is alone with a monster.

Ramsay looks back to her, eyebrows raised expectantly. “I believe I already asked you to take off your--”

She reaches out and cups his face in her hands before he can finish, presses her lips to his before she can scream. She squeezes her eyes shut because she _knows_ what will come next and she _can’t look at him,_ but she can feel him smiling under the kiss. She feels his teeth on her lip, tastes blood as he bites down, but she doesn’t cry out. She has endured Joffrey, he cannot hurt her any worse. She has already lost everything she ever loved, he cannot hurt her any worse.

She tells herself this again and again as he pushes her back onto the bed, pawing and ripping at her dress. It hurts, just like everyone warned her it would, and she can’t stop herself before she cries out, but she forces her lips into a smile, thinks of her first husband, small and twisted and gentler than any man she had ever met. The world spat poison at him and he would smile, he would _laugh,_ he would take the worst the world had because it was all the world ever gave him. It was all the world ever gave her now too, and she would take it and she would _laugh._

She rakes her fingernails across her husband’s back-- she doesn’t mean to, but every muscle in her body is tighter than a bowstring, and her hand just _slips_ \-- but he smiles from above her and she wonders if he likes the pain, whether he gives it or receives it. And he is not so hard to understand after all, she thinks. He thinks he’s playing a game that only he knows the rules to, but they’re not so hard to guess. He thinks he’s clever, but he’s not. Not compared to Littlefinger. _Not compared to me._

The thought surprises her, and she isn’t sure if she really believes it-- but she knows she will have to. She will be cleverer than this bastard, with his honey voice and his eyes like ice. She has seen sweetness hiding poison, she has seen wit sharpened to a weapon, she has endured horrors beyond imagining, and she has _learned._

Winterfell is her home, and _this bastard cannot frighten her._

 

 


	2. The Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Sansa wants this done right, she has to do it herself.

Ramsay keeps her confined to her room for days, and for a while she allows it. All she wants to do is sleep. Curl up in her bed under a mountain of blankets and _sleep._ He comes to her room every night, and she kisses him and she smiles and she _hates_ it. Some nights he is eager, and on those nights there is usually blood. They said she would only bleed the first time, but there is still blood. Other nights he takes his time, touching and pawing at her, and sometimes on those nights it doesn’t hurt at all, and that makes it worse. It’s easier to hate him when it hurts.

Theon brings her meals each day, and not once does he look her in the eye. She wonders what Ramsay could have _done_ to him, but she doesn’t think she wants to know the answer.

On the sixth day, she speaks to him. She almost tells him of the old woman, of the candle and the tower and her friends in the North, but something stops her. Perhaps it’s Littlefinger’s words, ever in the back of her mind, reminding her to trust no one-- and how could she even think to trust Theon, after what he did to her family, to her brothers?-- Perhaps it’s the look he gets in his eyes when she calls him by his name, like he’s afraid to remember what he was.

Theon Greyjoy murdered her little brothers. Theon Greyjoy was the closest thing to family she had left. But Theon Greyjoy was gone now, and something named Reek was living in his skin. And she would get no help from Reek.

She knows what she has to do.

She clothes herself in layers of thick wool, hides the bruises as best she can. She can’t stand the sight of them, can barely stand the sight of _herself_ most days. She pulls a cloak over her shoulders and pins back her hair under the hood. _I have every right to go out,_ she says to herself, _he cannot keep me in here._ And yet she hides a candle in her sleeve like a dagger and pulls the hood low over her eyes, like she’s a fugitive in her own home.

 _This is my home,_ she tells herself. _Winterfell is my home._

When Theon-- Reek-- brings her food, she slips through the door before he can re-lock it. He calls out to her, tells her to come back, _begs_ her to come back, and she doesn’t look, but she could swear he was starting to cry by the time she made it to the end of the hall.

When she reaches the tower, all she can think of is Bran. Little and clever and always exploring, always asking for stories. Sweeter than Arya and Rickon, not as wild, but still full of life.

The last time Sansa saw him, he was lying in his bed, face pale as snow, somehow smaller than she had ever seen him. A thousand years ago in King’s Landing, she heard that he had woken up.

She fights back the tears that burned at the corners of her eyes, and starts towards the ruined tower--

“Lady Sansa?”

_No._

Myranda closes the distance between them, the smile never leaving her face. If Sansa didn’t know better, she might think the other girl is being friendly, might think she is smiling out of kindness, not baring her teeth like a threatened dog.

“It _is_ you! I almost didn’t recognize you, with your hair covered like that! What are you doing out?” Myranda pulled her features into something resembling concern. “Your husband wouldn’t want you wandering about without a guard.”

Sansa glares back. _She’s going to tell Ramsay she saw me out here. She’s going to run and tell him._

“I was taking a walk.” Sansa answers, remembering the way Cersei always spoke to her, like she was the stupidest little girl in the world.

She can see Myranda bristle at the tone, and something triumphant swells in Sansa’s chest. “That’s right, you do seem rather fond of this spot.” Myranda wrinkles her nose at the tower, and for a moment Sansa thinks she looks very like a pig. “I can’t imagine _why._ ”

“I-- used to play around here.” Sansa lies. She always thought the tower was spooky as a child. “When I was little.”

“Did you now?” Myranda raises her brows. She’s not convinced. “What did you play at?”

“I used to climb it.” And the moment Sansa says the words she regrets them. She sees the look in Myranda’s eyes. _Why didn’t I say something else? Why didn’t I tell her I played pretend, or anything else?_

“You did?" Myranda asked, dark brows rising in a caricature of surprise. "I can _hardly_ _imagine_ you doing something like that.”

“Yes, well,” Sansa turns to go. She will try this again, another day, when Myranda is busy. “It was a long time ago--”

“Oh, but you never really _forget_ how to do that sort of thing,” Myranda’s voice is all sugar, sickly-sweet with it. “Don’t you want to climb it again? For old time’s sake?”

Sansa keeps her gaze locked on the other girl, and suddenly realizes what it must be like for a rabbit that’s caught in a trap to hear the hounds coming.

Myranda’s grin widens. “Go on.” She nods towards the tower. “I won’t tell Ramsay if you do.”

Sansa sucks in a deep breath, fills her lungs with cold air. It’s been snowing for days, if she tries to climb the tower now she’s sure to fall.

_But if I don’t keep her distracted, she’ll go and tell Ramsay I’m here._

Sansa starts walking towards the tower. _Bran did it,_ she tells herself, _he made it to the top, and he was only a little boy._ Nevermind the fact that Bran had been climbing things ever since he could walk, and he _still_ fell.

Myranda calls something about how she’s sure all of Sansa’s old handholds are still there, and Sansa fights the urge to swat her. She finds a loose brick that will make a serviceable start, hikes up her skirts-- her cheeks burn even as she tells herself this is no time for modesty-- and begins to climb. 

Progress is slow. There is no shortage of loose bricks and holes between the stones, but the higher Sansa gets, the further apart the footholds are, and just as she starts to get somewhere, she has to go back down and find an alternate route. She hears Myranda below her, crying out in mock-encouragement. Once, Sansa looks down to see if she’s still there-- once. _It’s not as bad as the moon door,_ Sansa reminds herself, as she fights to keep her grip steady, fights not to think of Lysa flailing like a doll as she fell.

 _If I fall, will I break my back like Bran did?_ She wonders, _Or will I die as soon as I hit the ground?_

About halfway up the tower, Sansa realizes she’s crying. Hot tears are streaming down her cheeks and harsh, ugly sobs wrack her throat. She prays that Myranda doesn’t hear. She begs the gods to help her keep her grip, to let her reach the top, to let this nightmare _end,_ but she knows it won’t. It hasn’t ended since her father died. Every time she thinks she’s woken up, every time she thinks it’s over, it gets worse.

She keeps climbing.

And-- there, there’s the window, there’s the top. It’s so close, so very close. And she can see the footholds, can see a path, and it’s not so hard, and how could Bran have made it this high and still fall?

Her fingers curl around the windowsill, and then her arm, and she’s alright, she’s going to be alright--

And her boot slips off the side of a loose brick, and Sansa lets out a short shriek of horror as he stomach lurches into her throat. Toes scrabble against stone, searching for solid ground--

 

 

And there. There it is. Her feet find holds again, her arm remains locked over the side of the window. She’s alright. She’s alright. She pulls herself up through the window, and she’s safe.

Sansa presses herself to the inside of the tower, lets the tears take over. She did it. She’s alive. She was sure she was going to fall. But she didn’t. She’s alive. The painful sobs tearing their way out of her throat prove that, the way her heart hammers against her ribs proves that.

She swallows the rest of the tears for now. Pokes her head out over the windowsill. There’s Myranda, hurrying off towards the keep-- to tell Ramsay, no doubt. There isn’t much time. She pulls the candle from her sleeve, along with flint and firesteel snatched from the kitchens. She makes a stand for the candle from snow, has to try a dozen times before she can get the spark to catch, and another half dozen to re-light it after the wind blows it out. At last, the flame stays, even as it flickers with every gust. Sansa practically runs down the stairs, and when she reaches the ground, when she looks over her shoulder, there’s her little candle, still flickering in the wind.


End file.
